ed round to the little Mexican and says to him: "Get
your disguise off of you, you murdersome critter! Get it off, I say,
and give these gentlemen a look at the terrible wicked face of
you--before you and that telegraph-pole gets to being friends!"

And then the little Mexican switched his big black beard off--and
right smack there before us was the Sage-Brush Hen! You never heard
such a yell as the boys give in all your born days!

* * * * *

And you never in all your born days saw such goings on as there was
that night at the Forest Queen! Everybody in Palomitas was right
there. The other banks and bars hadn't a soul left in 'em but the
dealers and the drink-slingers--and they, not having nothing to do at
home, just shut up shop and come along too. All the girls from all the
dance-halls showed up, the Hen being real down popular with 'em--which
told well for her--and they wanting to see the fun. Cherry happened to
be down from his ranch that night; and Becker got wind of what was up
and footed it across from Santa Cruz de la Canada; and word was sent
to the Elbogen brothers--they was real clever young fellows, them two
Germans--and over they come a-kiting on their buck-board from San
Juan. I guess it was about the biggest jam the Forest Queen ever had.

Hart's nephew was the only one around the place who hung back a
little, but he got there all right--being fished out of an empty
flour-barrel, where he'd hid under the counter in his uncle's store,
and brought along by the invitation committee sent to look for him all
dabbed over with flour.

Some thought the way they used Hart's nephew that night was just a
little mite too hard lines--he not being let to have as much as a
single drink in him, and so kept plumb sober while the Hen give him
his medicine; but all hands allowed--after his sassy talk to her--he
didn't get no more'n she'd a right to give. She just went at him like
a blister, the Hen did; and she blistered him worse because she did it
in her own funny way--telling him she did just dote on stage-drivers,
and if he really wanted to please her he'd take Hill's job regular;
and leading the boys up to him and introducing him, lady-like, as "the
hold-up hero"; and asking him to please to tell her all about that
fourteen-foot road-agent he'd killed; and just rubbing the whole thing
in on him every way she knowed how. Before the Hen got done with him
he was about the si